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19 - A Constructive Jewish Theology of God and Perfect Goodness

from Part V - Analytic Philosophy and Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Jerome Yehuda Gellman
Edited by
Steven Kepnes
Steven Kepnes
Affiliation:
Colgate University, New York
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Summary

I argue that a traditional Jewish conception of God should be that of a perfectly good being. This follows from the demand for our maximal love of God. A perfectly good being must have a perfectly good character and need have power and knowledge only to the degree needed to express its perfectly good character. It need not be omnipotent or omniscient. It would be eternal and creator and sustainer of the world. It is an open question whether God must be a metaphysically necessary being.

Keywords

perfectly good beingperfectly good charactermaximal love of Godfear of Godomnipotenceomniscienceperfect being
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology , pp. 453 - 466
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Selected Further Reading

Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Gellman, Jerome. “The God of the Jews and the Jewish God.” In Routledge Companion to Theism, 38–53. Edited by Taliaferro, Charles, Harricosn, Victoria, and Goetz., Stewart Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Gellman, Jerome Yehuda. Perfect Goodness and the God of the Jews. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2019.Google Scholar
Hampson, Daphna. “On Power and Gender.” Modern Theology 4 (1988): 239 ff.Google Scholar
Harshorne, Charles. A Natural Theology for Our Time. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1967.Google Scholar
Kellner, Menachem. Must a Jew Believe Anything? 2nd ed. Oxford and Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore. The God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism, Revised Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, Richard. “God and Time.” In Reasoned Faith, 204–22. Edited by Stump, Eleonore. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Wainwright, William. “Two (or Maybe One and a Half) Cheers for Perfect Being Theology.” Philo 12 (2009): 228–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Keith. Christ and the Cosmos. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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